Morten Thomassen from Norway decided to write about some of his memories of Eurovision and the Norwegian Eurovision selection. ESC Covers again will publish it after google translating it from Norwegian to English.

Not all memories need to be “ancient”, so this time I’m only going back half a year in time to find some nice memories.

After 2020 was cancelled, 2021 was watched from home since I didn’t get accreditation and 2022 was in Turin without accreditation, it was great to be back in the circus with accreditation, my first this decade and it tasted good.

There is something special about being inside the ESC bubble and the press center that seethes with anticipation, excitement and perhaps also a bit of disappointment when the result is not quite up to your personal expectations and I can imagine that the same feelings are there in the so-called homes of a thousand who watch the final from home or if they are very lucky are in the hall where it happens.

But, unlike the last two mentioned places, it doesn’t happen that Netta suddenly sits in a corner and is interviewed or one of this year’s artists just suddenly walks by and it’s even more fun when you get a chat or a picture with them.

The build-up to the final week is also fun, I myself was lucky enough to be able to participate in the Meet & Greet with the artists who want to attend what was OGAE’s official EuroClub, it turns out that many of the artists are really nice to talk to and that they genuinely think it’s a great thing to meet fans and experience ESC as an artist.

You go to some parties and the highlight for me is always the Nordic party where we have gradually incorporated Estonia into the Nordic fold, they pay enough for it, but it’s nice.

This party is held a few days before the semi-finals start and then most of the artists still have low shoulders and the nervousness is not yet very noticeable and this party is probably the last chance they have to let loose and party with the fans, which Alessandra and Käärijä did among other things together with me.

No wonder they became audience favourites, but another one who also became it was the lady who already had an ESC victory under her belt and was looking for her second, I’m naturally talking about my great favorite Loreen who I already when I heard her song for the first time once understood something big was going on and lucky me got a little chat with her and of course a picture too.

Although she came in second place in the public vote without getting a single 12 points, unfortunately many people believe that she did not deserve the victory, a completely incomprehensible attitude in my opinion, and work is being done to give the people more power in the vote, a change I do not agree with.

Because when you look at how Loreen has done in the charts compared to Alessandra and Käärijä, there is very little doubt that the jury was right and gave the most points to the song that was the most successful after the final.

So I can join in wondering what really made the Norwegian and Finnish artists get paid so poorly by the jury as they did, because I think that the juries are not always as consistent in their judgment and understandably judge some very harshly and others surprisingly well.

In my eyes, Loreen will always be the right winner of ESC-2023, although on the final night itself I would probably have taken even more if our Finnish friend had taken home the victory, but when you get some time to think, you usually think the best thoughts and then this year’s winning song is without a doubt a winner for history.

Unlike Morten, my memories of 2023 are almost all negative. Yes I took the decision not to travel anymore for various reasons – health being the most important one but also the awful cost each year of visas to get just a piece of paper to say I can visit this country. For me the main reasons to attend Eurovision were always meeting the composers and getting promo CD’s. Very few composers now travel to Eurovision and also only a handful of promo CD’s exist and they are hard to get hold of. But most important, the songs for 2023 were really not my taste and like 15 of them could have all been my bottom entry. For the first time ever since I started with Eurovision in 1980, no song got a score of 8, 9 or 10. I never award zero points as there are effort into a song, but so many got 2 or 3 points this year.

Featured image – Wikipedia